To be a good writer, you have to be totally honest and not afraid to speak out. You have to have the ability to work hard and the stamina for a long haul. Sometimes you will sit for hours staring at a sheet of blank paper in front of you. You will have to have the determination not to get up till the sheet is filled with writing. It doesn’t matter if you fill it with rubbish. The discipline will prove worthwhile.

…

Always do your homework. A writer’s responsibility — whether he’s an essayist or a novelist — is to inform his reader while he provokes or entertains him. The challenge is to tell him something he doesn’t know. And don’t talk down to your reader; level with him.

“I can’t stress enough how important it is to write bad songs. There’s a lot of people who don’t want to finish songs because they don’t think they’re any good. Well they’re not good enough. Write it! I want you to write me the worst songs you could possible write me because you won’t write bad songs. You’re thinking they’re bad so you don’t have to finish it. That’s what I really think it is. Well it’s all right. Well, how do you know? It’s not done!”